Drummers have become accustomed to the “feel” of traditional wood drumsticks. The center of gravity, or center of balance, has been determined by the well-known shape of the drumstick having a striking tip mounted on a tapered section and a straight shank and made of a relatively uniform density wood. Investigation shows that this conventional wood drumstick has a center of gravity location limited to 42% to 57.3% of the way from the back or butt end of the drumstick. Taper affects the center of gravity. Further, any single model of drumsticks having the same weight could have a variation in center of gravity location of up to about 3% due to, for example, variations in the wood density.
Wood drumsticks have some less than optimum characteristics in the lack of complete uniformity, lack of durability in use and lack of adequate strength. These deficiencies have given rise to many efforts to improve drumsticks by manufacturing them from metals, plastics, and other materials. Numerous patents have been issued on drumsticks made of these synthetic materials, and in most cases, wood drumsticks have been cited as the desired goal for tonal characteristics and “feel” to the user. That “feel” may be attributable to the center of gravity above.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,566 described a drumstick having a weight, preferably a heavy weight such as a lead weight, inserted into a hole at the butt portion of the drumstick that is fixed in place so that the center of gravity of a drumstick was modified to 35% to 41% from the butt end.